Chris's Crime Forum

TIFFANY MORRISON,aged 25, from the Mohawk Territory of Kaknawake outside Montreal has not been seen since June 18, 2006.

Her sister, Melanie Morrison describes Tiffany as someone “who was always trying to better herself, to make a better life for her and her daughter.” When Tiffany went out for the night and didn’t return, the family feared the worst.

“She loved her daughter so much,” says Carol Morrison, Tiffany’s mother, “She would never leave her like this.”

Tiffany was seen at a bar in the nearby town of LaSalle, Quebec on the night she disappeared. She shared a taxi back to Kahnawake with a man from the community. He has told police that she remained in the taxi after he was let out at his own house.

Although taxi drivers are required to report their fares, they don't always do so. To date, the police have not been able to identify the taxi company or locate the driver. Tiffany’s bank account and credit card have not been used since that night.

The Kahnawake Peacekeepers, the police force for the Kahnawake First Nation, is treating Tiffany’s disappearance as a criminal investigation. They have been in contact with police forces in Quebec and Ontario.

Ed Stacey, Investigator with the Kahnawake Peacekeepers, says that after publicizing Tiffany’s disappearance on missing persons networks, the force has heard numerous false sightings and other rumours but so far has turned up little that is credible. However, he remains convinced that there are members of the public who know something about what happened but have not come forward yet.

The support from the Kahnawake Peacekeepers has helped to make a difficult time easier for the Morrison family. “They have always provided us with updates and stay in regular contact.” says Melanie. “Any time we approached the Peacekeepers with suggestions or new approaches to the investigation, they were willing to explore them with us.”

Tiffany and her daughter live with her mother Carol. Her family describe her as energetic and completely devoted to her daughter. At the time of her disappearance, Tiffany had just completed an entrepreneurial training program. She planned to apply for a loan so she could go into business for herself.

“Tiffany always had a plan,” her mother recalls. “She wanted to get her and her daughter their own home.”

Although she is certain that Tiffany would have not gone missing of her own free will, her mother Carol continues to hope that she will be found and can return safely home. “There’s a young girl who asks every day when her mother will come home. All we can do is hope.”

“She is my sister. She is a mother, a daughter. She is someone who is deeply missed by her family and community.” says Melanie. “Every day we hope for new information, anything that might tell us where Tiffany might be. Someone knows something. Our hope depends on them coming forward.”

The Kahnawake Peacekeepers have asked that anyone with information on the disappearance of Tiffany Morrison contact Ed Stacey at 450-632-6505.
UNSOLVED

Family of missing Kahnawake woman hoping for new information
Family members and friends held a candlelight vigil Saturday night in Kahnawake in an attempt to bring renewed attention to the case of Tiffany Morrison, a Mohawk woman who has been missing for three years.


The missing woman's parents and sister led the march through the community, carrying photographs of her.


Morrison disappeared after leaving a bar in LaSalle in June 2006. She was last seen with a man in a taxi on the Kahnawake reserve.


The man told police the cab driver let him out of the car and continued on with Morrison.


Members of the Mohawk community have recently posted pictures of Morrison around Kahnawake, hoping that someone will come forward with new information.
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Tiffany Morrison was someone who resonated in a room, hyper in a good way, upbeat and involved.


"She was the kind of person you knew when she was around. She didn't stay in the background," said her sister, Melanie.


Now, three years after she vanished without a trace, it's Morrison's absence that resonates.


"It changed the whole mood in my mother's house," Melanie said. "Nobody really knows how to react to each other at family get-togethers. It's similar to a wake kind of atmosphere.


"When we get together you know someone's missing. There's not as much joking or laughing going on."


Tiffany Morrison, devoted mother to a five-year-old girl, gregarious, 24 years old and perhaps a little too trusting, went to see a band at a club in a Montreal suburb on a Saturday night in June 2006. She reportedly shared a taxi back to the Kahnawake Mohawk Reserve just south of Montreal at midnight with a male acquaintance. He was dropped off at his house on one side of the reserve, and said she stayed in the cab to go to her mother's house, where she lived.


She has not been seen since. Her bank account and credit card have never been used.


Tiffany Morrison joined the roll of the 1,573 women listed as missing in Canada on the RCMP's national database, a disproportionate number of them aboriginal.


The Quebec figures are unknown — the RCMP won't give province-by-province breakdowns, and the Surete du Quebec says it can't be certain because the numbers fluctuate, with teen runaways and Alzheimer's patients constantly going and returning — but the toll on loved ones is well documented.


"It's an unimaginable grief these families go through," said Pina Arcamone, director-general of Enfant-Retour Quebec, formerly known as the Missing Children's Network, which is aiding the Morrison family.


"All they want, what they need, is to know the truth about what has happened to their loved ones."


Morrison's mother and father don't socialize much anymore. They're more emotional, prone to outbursts and breakdowns, Melanie said. The well-meaning ask after their daughter and offer condolences, dredging up the hurt.


"It actually gets harder and harder for the family as time goes on," Melanie said. "There's no closure and it's eating away at us."


Besides Morrison, there are two other brothers.


If her parents die before Morrison's disappearance is solved, "it will probably tear the rest of the family apart, because we don't know how to react, or to interact."


Kahnawake Peacekeeper investigator Ed Stacey has enlisted the aid of the RCMP, the SQ and Ontario and Montreal police forces, missing person's networks in Canada and the United States, sniffer dogs, and divers on several occasions to search the St. Lawrence Seaway and River that border his territory.


He's visited the Quebec coroner's main offices to check their files of unclaimed bodies or body parts and looked at cadavers. He's spoken with forensic anthropologist and crime novelist Kathy Reichs.


He still follows up on tips, often phoned in by people under the influence of alcohol, taking the time to check hotel lobby security tapes to see if it was, in fact, Morrison.


All to no avail


"Frustrating," is how Stacey, a veteran of the Peacekeepers for more than 20 years, describes it. In a reserve of roughly 8,500 people, it is the native force's first long-running missing person's case.


"We're a small community — somebody must know something out there," he said. "We just have to hope the continued pressure will dig away at the person's soul, and one day somebody who does know will come forward and confess."


There is a widespread conviction in the native community that police and the media are slower to react to missing person's cases involving aboriginal women, influenced by stereotypes and ingrained racism. When the response comes, it's often too little, too late, said Ellen Gabriel, president of the Quebec Native Women's Association.


"It's common practice in this area and the rest of Canada that when an aboriginal woman goes missing, police don't take it seriously . . .," Gabriel said, although noting this isn't true of all police forces. "They say 'She's probably out partying' because, you know, we're all alcoholics."


Meanwhile, women like Natasha Cournoyer, who went missing Oct. 1, get front-page play days after their disappearance, and thousands of dollars are offered in reward money. It was months before the media outside of Kahnawake broadcast Morrison's case.


Legitimate cases are not helped by the fact that 80 per cent of the 8,196 missing person's cases reported to Quebec police in 2008 — an average of 22 a day — involve runaways, 86 per cent of which turn up in the first week.


http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/leg ... story.html